


Why

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Post-Canon, i feel like there are other tags that apply but i have no idea what they are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2019-09-15 02:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16924503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: Written the first time I heard this bit of war table banter:Josephine: Do you ever wonder what lies at the edges of the map, past the seas?Cullen: No.Leliana: I think we have enough to worry about on this continent.Josephine: Of course, but…sighAnd that sigh is just so regretful. On top of that, I always get this weird little twist when I walk by her desk and see those lilies in their vase. Josephine kind of gets a raw deal, if you ask me.So welcome to my first fix-it fic.(Originally posted on Tumblr)





	Why

“Why?” they ask her, over and over.

“Why not?” She is a diplomat to her very core, so she says it with a smile and a little laugh no one ever knows is false.

“Why would you want to sail out there, when you don’t know what you’ll find?” they ask her.

“Why would you not?” she wants to ask them in return. Instead, she smiles and laughs and pretends it’s a jest when she says, “How will we know what we’ll find, if no one ever looks?”

Even the most persistent take themselves off in time, defeated by the impenetrable bulwark of a trained diplomat’s charm. They shake their heads, and some of them snicker behind their hands, but they leave her in peace, and that’s all that matters.

She plans the expedition as carefully as ever she planned one for the Inquisition. Let others think her skills run only as far as banquets and formal balls. None of them had to feed an army on what could be scavenged in the burned out ruins of Haven, or shelter that same army in the heart of the Frostbacks. Now she has actual coin to spend, and it feels like a luxury, though it’s been years since the Inquisition’s first harrowing days when the only currency she had was whatever good will her smiles could win.

Gathering the coin itself is what takes the most time. She will not gamble her family’s money on this: that wealth is too newly restored, too tenuous to bear the burden of her failure. If this voyage is successful, she will happily share the bounty with them, but she can’t leave on this journey knowing that she carries her family’s future with her. She carried that burden for too many years, and though she accepted it, she has no desire to take it up again. Willingly is not the same as eagerly.

So she sells her townhouse in Val Royeaux, and the vineyard she owns in Nevarra, and all her interests in a score of ventures. It’s enough to buy ships, and good captains, and steady crews, to buy the goods to fill those ships with everything they might need when they sail into the unknown.

It’s also enough to buy soldiers. Not many, but there’s no telling what they might find on the other side of the ocean, and she knows the value of a strong sword arm. She hires the best, and pays them well. She needs no coin for the man who leads them, though she pays him anyway, over his many protests.

There are more whispers when his name becomes known, gossip spreading it quickly through the streets and ballrooms of Antiva City. Friends approach her in concern, offering up their own guards in his place.

“Why him?” they ask her.

“He was one of the Inquisitor’s inner circle,” she says with her bland, diplomat’s smile. “Who better for such an expedition as this?”

She wins this fight as she has won so many others: by being the grass rather than the oak when the wind of their arguments and disapproval blows around her. She bends and sways obligingly, and once they are gone, she returns to her business without a sign she was ever disturbed. And in the end, when her ships finally leave the harbor, Thom Rainier stands at her elbow.

“Why?” they have asked her, over and over and over again.

“Because this is what I want,” she thinks, and smiles into the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> [on Tumblr](https://dragonflies-and-katydids.tumblr.com/post/141752129297/this-was-not-what-i-sat-down-to-write)


End file.
